ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A new plan for controlling Lake Ontario water levels is intended to restore diversity in shoreline plant and animal communities by permitting greater fluctuations.

The International Joint Commission, a treaty organization of the U.S. and Canada, released the regulatory plan Monday. The panel says the lake would be allowed to be a few inches higher, on average, in spring and fall than the current regulations allow.

Similar proposals in recent years were withdrawn after protests from shoreline residents and businesses.

The water levels of the lake and the St. Lawrence Seaway are controlled by releases from the Moses-Saunders Dam in Cornwall, Ontario.

The current regulation plan moderates extreme high and low water levels on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. However, it is based on conditions of the last century, does not take the environment into account, and has no process for adapting to future challenges such as bigger storms and more severe droughts, according to a news release from the International Joint Commission.

"While continuing to moderate extreme high and low water levels, the new approach would allow for more natural water levels and flow patterns and is expected to produce significant environmental improvements," according to the commission's news release.

Public hearings will be scheduled in late spring and comments taken until June 15.

Water levels in Lake Ontario have been a hot topic in the last couple of summers.

In 2010, the water level of Lake Ontario was so low residents had trouble putting in their docks, campers at Sandy Pond couldn't get their boats through the channel into Lake Ontario and fishing charters couldn't reach some of the prize angling spots along the shoreline.

Most of the problem in 2010 was low water levels in Montreal Harbor because of a lack of rain and snow runoff from the Ottawa River, the largest tributary into the St. Lawrence River.

But large amounts of snow and rain runoff from the winter of 2010-11 resulted in good water levels in Lake Ontario for much of 2011. In 2011, the water level at one time was 11 inches above average and 19 inches above last year at this time.